There is now a large body of knowledge in the cleaning and detergent arts. It has become large partly because of the universal need to clean things and partly because of the many unique cleaning problems which have arisen. For example, soil on the surface of non-porous ceramic tile is generally much easier to remove than the same soil embedded in a highly porous fiber; a food stain in an evening gown has generally required a treatment quite different from that used to remove a crayon mark from a wall; and, to be extreme, a shampoo for human hair or a cleaner for human skin can usually be expected to be different from an oven cleaner.
The wide range of soils and stains and the large number of widely different sites in which they occur has been a factor in the "easy" solution to the problem where the "easy" solution might involve the use of an inflammable solvent, the use of a toxic solvent, or the use of phosphates or other ecologically unacceptable chemicals.
The differences in water hardness throughout the country has also posed a problem in the design of multi-purpose cleaners.
There has been, therefore, a need for non-flammable, non-toxic, non-phosphate cleaners which can be used successfully with water of substantially any hardness. Secondly, there is a need for a cleaner "system"; that is, a group of chemicals which, by adjustment in accordance with a mathematical pattern form compositions which clean substantially any substrate of substantially any soil or stain. Thirdly, there is a need for such a cleaner system wherein all definable compositions are excellent cleaners and some are superior cleaners.